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Hey, this is Chris with LakeHub. I'm going to talk to you about three ways to improve the profitability of your vacation home
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Also, stay tuned. I've got one tip to help you book more. And it's really simple and it's worth it
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Point number one is find a local website, a local listing site
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We have LewisvilleLakeTexas.com and there you can, if you have a VRBO or you have a vacation home rental that you'd like to list on there
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we charge a flat monthly fee. No matter how many rentals you get, no matter how many leads you get, no matter how many views you get
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you can put pictures up there, you can put the information about the site and then that's it
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You just pay that. You don't pay any percentage of your rental income. And then so that extra 7%, 14% that those other websites charge you, you can just charge it
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You can just raise your price and rent it through our site. And that's a great way to do it
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There's a lot of those sites out there. You just get them listed. They link to whatever calendar you want to get linked to
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Or you can just manage it via email or phone calls, however you want to manage it
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The second thing you can do is find an established property management company that has their own audience and their own website
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So these people have already paid, have already done their due diligence, have websites up for many years, and they offer listing services
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they offer online rentals and payments, and they also manage your property for a fee
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And they'll take care of cleanings, they'll take care of any damages, they'll take care of replacing anything that's missing
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Yeah, these companies are great. BrokenBowCabinLodging.com is a fine example. You could just pay their percentage. They've been around for a long time. They have their own audience
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You go with them because here's why going with them matters. Having their own audience, having them advertising and driving their own traffic
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means that they don't have to go pay the extra fees to the larger VRBOs, Airbnbs of the world
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to get them to drive traffic to their site, which is another fee on top of their fee
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And then you're, you know, so you'll save 10, 15% on your monthly income, on your monthly revenue right there
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Just go with the local established property management company and go look them up
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I'll have it linked right here below. And the third one is not for everybody
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If you've got a little technology experience, which a lot of people do today, try going out and building your own
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There's a lot of great, inexpensive web hosting services out there. There's a lot of companies out there that will build you your own website for a flat fee
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If you go to paradisepointpark.com, you'll see that one of the clients that we worked with did the photography, launched their site
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They also have online booking and they put their advertisement on the local sites
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drive the traffic to them. And they don't have to use all the large companies like VRBO, Airbnb
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because they drive plenty of traffic and they book up quickly just by having their own website, having a good looking website
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So you could do that yourself. If you're a little bit tech savvy, get some great pictures, put them up on your website, get a URL
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go host that and then find a online booking software that you like
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And then they can book right online. You can just do it yourself. And then you just got to take any other extra money you're saving by not using the big guys and go buy some ads
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Go buy some local ads from some local listing companies. Go buy ads in email services
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Anybody that has your same audience, go out, buy some ads, drive traffic to your website, book them directly there
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Well, thanks for sticking around. So here's the one tip that you can use to increase your bookings online
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And that is hire a professional real estate photographer that also offers drone photography
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So get a professional real estate photographer, get inside, outside shots, get dusk, get dawn shots, hire them for the whole day
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Give them a place to sleep for a day. Let them get up, take morning shots
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Let them take afternoon shots and let them get that drone out and take some good footage of the of the property
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And you will book more
